More meditations on the nature of story, games, and emotional satisfaction. A few months ago I was very focused on spirituality and atheism, and how the natural world does and doesn''t work. While I won''t start a flamewar or bore you with the details, I do want to note that I came to the conclusion that one of the important functions of fiction was to help us relate to injustice. We often dream of a better world and write it on the page. People do what they should; events unfold in interesting and meaningful ways; even luck happens in a way that benefits narrative and drama. Often, things are fair. Not like the real world at all. For weeks now I''ve been thinking about how players create stories in games. When you consider the bulk of time spent playing, games share more with reality than with drama. There is lots of repetition, and sometimes lots of tedium. Players fumble, err, and fail. And while it may be fun to experience and play, the sum of their actions often makes for poor story. In an game with a great deal of freedom-- freedom of movement, freedom of action / reaction, freedom to ignore or engage the game world at large-- I wonder which is ultimately more emotionally satisfying: The game world which balances, counters, and steers the events in a kind of karmic fashion (in the interests of drama and story); or the game world where, like real life (in my view), things simply happen and there is no balance. Example: The player is out wandering in the desert. They encounter a sole survivor of an ambush, a small child who is wounded and delirious. If they leave the child, the child will die. If they try to save him, its an added burden and difficulty to get him through the desert to some place safe. In the real world (IMHO, remember) if the child was left to perish, that would be that. Cold, cruel, natural. The game world would not respond or care. Emotionally unsatisfying, but highly realistic. But in "drama-world," (the world I believe we crave) every action is noted and weighed and, ultimately, emotionally satisfying. Our player who leaves the poor child experiences something to balance out their deeds. Maybe the memory haunts them; or some help they need doesn''t arrive. It''s not only that their choices matter, as they should in a good game: It''s that there''s some fairness to the game world. I wonder which would be more well received. -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

Now where did I hear this : this world is bad, there should be a better world, a fair and meaningfull one ; all the evil in this world, there should be someone that repays it all back. Hmm... Sounds to me like you miss God already

Me, I''d rather like to save the child in the real world. With all the logic reasons in the world not to. Just cause I want to.

In a drama world, there would always be the suspicion that I saved the child not cause I felt like it, but cause it gave me +3 karma points. I might even hate both the quest and the child if it was too difficult, or the reward too small, or the punishment too annoying.


A game example of drama world : Counterstrike (a little far fetched, but the game punishes you for killing hostages = some fairness). Ask every CT how they feel about hostages ? No way like "poor innocent people its our job to save". More like -1000$ likely to get you killed pains in the bottom. And, after a bit of playing, and dying by terrorist scum hiding behind hostages, you just SHOOT through hostages (and take pleasure in it too). Screw the money, if you die you loose more anyways.


Now if the hostages wouldnt die all the time, would hit the floor when shooting starts, and would talk from time to time, acting like scared hostages, maybe (just maybe), I might like em, like I like those chickens on cs_italy

In the real world as you say, if the child was left to die there may be no physical result, and while admittedly cold and cruel, may have no 'real' impact on you. However I disagree that there is no result whatsoever. At the very least your personal, umm, state of mind... Equivalent to your karma, alignment, whatever you want to call it would be reinforced, whatever way you leaned in that. If you were a good sort, the experience would bother you to varying degrees, an evil sort might go out of his way to hurt the child more, and enjoy it, and a neutral would have more important matters on his mind.

No reason this can't be in a game. The experience would be personal, and have no effect whatsoever on the gameplay. The thing is to make the player care about the people in the game himself, not as the game character. The games (of that type) I like the most do this to a limited degree.
I think that the player shouldn't know whether his action will have a result that will aid (or hinder) him later in the game. Build some into the game, make others random, reverse it a time or two (where an apparently good act has a horrible result and vise versa) but don't leave it out. The player needs to know that in general their actions have serious repercussions.

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"Two wrongs do not make a right; it usually takes 3 or more."

Edited by - Ratheous on May 9, 2001 5:46:18 PM

yay, real discussion!

Ratheous: I think what you are getting at is the drive to be a good person and good member of your society (i''ve forgotten the term for this :/ ), and the reverse of which is thanatos, the drive to feel guilty or even kill yourself if you feel like a burden on your society.

Wavinator, I''m actually currently trying to write a manga about justice and beauty. It''s amazing the insights studying fashion design can give you into the nature of justice. Take harmful corsets and footbinding, vs. codpeices and other harmless padding, vs. the painless bodysculpting the future could bring us... At any rate, what I wanted to say was, are you interested in editing or co-writing such a manga? I''d like to show you the first draft for the script of chapter 1 if you''re interested.

Also, I think that you should read J.G. Ballard''s Unlimited Dream Company to get a helpful perspective on your questions - it''s all about fulfilling obscure drives and cathartizing mysterious emotions. IMO, anyway.